In wireless communication, devices send and receive messages without being physically coupled. Wireless devices can include portable computers, telephones, location sensors (such as those using GPS), and the like. Portable computers with wireless communication capability can be coupled to a computer network, such as the Internet or the World Wide Web. The IEEE 802.11 standards (including IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, and IEEE 802.11n) include known techniques for coupling wireless devices to a computer network. In the IEEE 802.11 standard, wireless devices seek out and select “access points” (herein sometimes called “AP's”). Each wireless device associates itself with a particular AP, with which it communicates. Each wireless device (which might be mobile) determines from time to time if it has good communication with its associated AP, and whether it would have better communication with a different AP.
Known wireless communication techniques exhibit several problems that interfere with seamless mobility. Handoff (deassociating a wireless device from a first AP, and associating that wireless device with a second AP) can take substantial time in relation to the wireless communication. This might constrict the wireless devices and AP's from using their full communication ability. A second problem is that each wireless device chooses the AP it associates with, based only on local state visible to the device. This might create a set of device-to-AP associations with sub-optimal usage of the wireless spectrum.
In wireless communication systems in which seamless mobility is desired, one method is to assign wireless stations to particular access points, directing only the assigned access points to respond to those wireless stations. This might be accomplished, as shown in the Incorporated Disclosure, with a control element that assigns those wireless stations to those access points. The control element thus would direct which access point(s), usually only one, respond to messages from wireless stations. One problem in the known art is that at least some access point chipsets are designed to respond to all messages from wireless stations with an ACK (acknowledgement) message, in accord with the set of IEEE 802.11 standards.